이동통신사의 통신원가 산정시 법인세비용 배부에 대한 개선방안 연구

In the early 2000s, the government induced firm to enter the mobile telecommunication industry which demands a massive investment as it is one of national information infrastructures. Despite of higher initial investment, mobile telecommunication industry brought the first movers to make a huge profit because the industry is monopolistic and oligopolistic and customer’s demand is consistently increased. These facts can be proved to the number of mobile phone service subscriber, about ten million people in 2015.
As complaints about mobile service has increased, the public interest is growing in not only mobile telecommunication price but also mobile telecommunication costs. They raise a question whether pricing mobile communication service is reasonable. Once again, these public interest also boost academic interest, such as calculation method and components of telecommunication cost.
This case study focuses on the allocation of corporate tax expense with mobile telecommunication cost in telecommunication firms among various academic issues. The followings are the reason of choosing this specific issue.
First, according to the current accounting separation standards in the Telecommunication Business Act, the corporate tax expense included in aggregate cost is practically considered the same as the corporate tax expense of Financial Accounting Standards. Estimating corporate tax expense is critical point in not only aggregate cost but also cost recovery rate.
Moreover, the aggregate cost is one of the relevant information for establishing and carrying out mobile telecommunication policy. Corporation tax expense is also one of the main components of the aggregate cost, and the impact of corporation tax expense on aggregate cost is to a considerable extent as the level of corporation varies depending on the recognition basis of corporation tax expense or service allocation basis. Under the current system, cost could be distorted in the case of that effective tax rate is large enough in the particular year, or corporate tax expense appears to be negative value. Therefore, the purpose of this study is calculating the reasonable aggregate cost to improve consistency and coordination among public utility charges. Computing aggregate cost is also able to recalculate the corporate tax expense on the basis of scoring criteria of public utility charges published by Ministry of Strategy and Finance in 2013.
Aggregate cost including corporate tax expense is expected to be reasonable basic data for a policy decision of telecommunication fee if corporate tax expense is calculated by scoring criteria of public utility charges published by Ministry of Strategy and Finance. Under the current system, the aggregate cost is generally overestimated or underestimated due to the irregularly occurred corporate tax expense. Moreover, corporate tax expense is currently distributed across the service on the basis of operating income ratio under the accounting separation standards. In this case, the cost also could be distorted because the service which makes a profit pays negative value of corporate tax expense, otherwise, the services which makes a loss pays positive value of corporate tax expense. Therefore, this study suggested the cost allocation across the service by below procedures.
To improve current allocation method, we multiply operating profit and loss across the service by tax rate, and then we define common expense as deduct profits which are not taxation objects, adjustment details in the concept of financial accounting. Lastly, we set the cost as the basis of compensation on operating assets. Analysis results shows that there is a big gap between the corporate tax expense calculated by current system and calculated by our suggestion in the case of profitable service. That is, cost difference by allocating corporate tax expense has a great effect on the policy decision of telecommunication fee such as demanding reduction of fee, compensation of cost. Therefore, this paper suggests that government gives positive consideration to rational allocation plan and policy for corporate tax expense when deciding telecommunication fee.
This paper also has limit to discuss the allocation of not overall factors but corporate tax expense when estimating aggregate cost. Further research should consider the effect of corporate tax expense on telecommunication accounting by examining the relation between corporate tax expense and compensation rate on operating asset before or after tax.